The author wrote that Kennedy's "anti-Communism was couched in terms of American idealism."
Kennedy inherited a plan that was devised under the preceding Eisenhower presidency, supporting Cuban exiles in the US to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro. The 'Bay of Pigs' invasion in 1961 ended in failure. This might have led the Soviets to conclude that Kennedy was weak, and that they could get away with installing nuclear weapons on Cuba in 1962. The Cuban missile crisis ensued. After a thirteen-day stand-off that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, Nikita Kruschev withdrew the weapons and Kennedy's reputation was restored.
The author might see Kennedy "a hardened Cold Warrior". Yet Robert Caro had listened to the tapes of the execom - Kennedy's executive committee, that dealt with the Cuban crisis. He sometimes felt like almost everyone present was arguing for an invasion. And every time things got heated, one heard Kennedy saying something like, "gentlemen, let's take a break, let's have dinner and then we'll come back and talk". He was pulling these men back. Russian ships did cross the line and he said: "Let's give them one more day." So the author could see Kennedy as a "dithering coward". The same applies to Obama, who had avoided a military strike against Syria last September, but letting the Congress to decide
The "US idealism" in the 21st century is being challenged by Islamist fundamentalism, which refuses to compromise and empathise. Does the author have any suggestion how to combat terrorism? No doubt much has gone wrong in America in recent decades, but it moves on. Not only glory, also shame is part of a country's history.

"But there is no evidence for that at all [i.e., that Kennedy would have prevented the escalation of the Vietnam War]."
While this counterfactual has been debated ad nauseam since Kennedy's assassination and as all counterfactuals can never be conclusively resolved, in fact there is some rather significant evidence bearing on this issue that is rarely cited:
1. Daniel Ellsberg, originally as convinced a Cold Warrior as Kennedy, whose creditentials as a whistleblower on American duplicity during the Cold War and in particular in Vietnam does not have to be argued here, based on confidential conversations with Robert Kennedy before his death, reports in his memoirs [Secrets, 2002, p. 194-7] that John Kennedy was adamantly opposed to sending combat troups to Vietnam. As cited by Ellsberg, Robert Kennedy said "We didn't want to lose in Vietnam or get out. We wanted to win if we could. But my brother was determined never to send ground combat unit to Vietnam." If the war were unwinnable, according to Bobby, Pres. Kennedy would have aimed for a "Laotian" compromise solution (p. 195). This deep conviction was based on Kennedy's one-day 1951 visit to Vietnam where the hopelessness and self-delusion of the French position was something he never wanted the US to find itself in (p. 196-7). Apparently he was informed by the American consular official Edmund Gullion that "The French have lost. If we come in here and do the same thing we will lose, too, for the same reason. There's no will or support for this kind of war back in Paris. The home front is lost. The same thing would happen to us." (p. 196, and this three years before the final French defeat!)
2. The morning edition of the New York Times of 22 Nov. 1963 (just before his assassination) carried the headline "Kennedy plans to withdraw US advisors from Vietnam." This is not what you will find if you now search the Times' digital archives for that date, but my cynical journalist father stashed away a copy in our basement in New York that I later chanced upon (subsequently destroyed in a basement flood) for reasons of his own.

It's not clear what Kennedy would have done in Vietnam. However, it seems clear that after Korea, no one was willing to enter North Vietnam with ground troops for fear of Chinese intervention. Given that limitation, the question was, can you win a war with a country you will not invade. In retrospect, the answer seems clear. In my opinion it was always clear.

No, the justification for going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq was not "the spread of democracy, the cause of liberty, and the universal authority of 'American values.'" Afghanistan was justified because it refused to turn over Osama bin Laden and Iraq was justified by its (alleged) weapons of mass destruction. The other justifications only came later.

It's also not true that there is "no evidence" that Kennedy would have "prevented the escalation of the Vietnam War." No one knows what Kennedy would have done, but there *is* evidence of plans to reduce troop commitments in 1963 and various Kennedy advisers have said that he intended to pursue a negotiated solution. While hardly persuasive (there is also evidence on the other side), this screed is horribly unbalanced.

Excellent analysis. I think emerging budget realities within the US will result in a major downsizing of the American military and a re-calibration of policy towards a noninterventionist foreign policy. Domestic unemployment is not truly going to be ameliorated or real wages improved until a very significant domestic public infrastructure program is undertaken.

Adequate entitlements for an aging population and improving domestic economics for the bast middle of American society are inconsistent with an interventionist foreign policy. A long era is coming to an end.

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